“I gotta say, Gabriel,” Michael said, “this is bigger than an epidemic. This is something you can’t just find a miracle cure for and move on from, like you did before. It won’t work, and if you’re reckless about it, you run the risk of killing millions of people in the process.”
“I’m trying to save people not kill them. What do you expect me to do?”
“Finish your research. Study it, learn everything there is to know, and figure out how to negotiate with it. Then, together, we will capture the center of it, the core of its being. And we need to—”
“Capture the center? The core of its being? Negotiate with a virus? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I mean exactly what I said. Together, we can capture the core of its being. And then we’ll take our case to the Sky Amoeba.”
Gabriel glared at the big slug. He didn’t have time for such nonsense. The slugs were probably just hallucinations brought on by his Alzheimer’s. Without responding, he clambered through his bedroom window. As soon as he was inside, relief swept through him.
Michael inched up to the window. “Gabriel, you—”
“I’m going to bed, Michael. And tomorrow, I’m going to prove you wrong.”
Gabriel took off his coat. Bernard wasn’t in the bathroom, so he could wash his muddy clothes out in the sink. Nothing in his room had been moved, and the bed linens were still as untidy as he’d left them. He would call maintenance the next morning and say the window screen had fallen off in the night.
Michael stared at him through the open window. The slug’s posture suddenly looked weighted down. Even his antennas were lowered. “Sorry, man,” Michael said.
“For what?”
“Tomorrow, the truth is gonna come out. And like I said, you’re not gonna like it.”
Gabriel shook his head, closed the window, and shut the blinds right in the giant slug’s face.
Chapter 27:
Ellipsis
Spring 1983
Father Gareth walked across the wooden planks of the Clamshell Tavern, a small outdoor restaurant less than a mile from the famous Santa Monica Pier. Every step caused another old joint in his leg or hip to creak.
The last few years had not been kind to him. His beard had become a long, frizzy tangle of white hair. His once straight-backed, nimble figure had been devoured by Crohn’s disease, leaving little more than a fragile skeleton with transparent, speckled skin. The bags under his eyes grew heavier with every passing month. Gareth had often liked to joke that the wrinkles on his face might someday pull the skin right off, but lately, he worried that his joke might actually come true.
He’d once stood at a proud six foot two, but now, the stoop in his back had lowered him to five foot nine, on a good day. The knockout combination of arthritis and carpal tunnel had transformed even the simple task of holding a pen into a painful chore. Osteoporosis had dealt the final blow in his body’s self-destruction. His bones had gotten so hollow that even the hottest days of the summer did nothing to warm him. So whenever he left the church, he always wore his new favorite outfit, a trench coat and fedora.
But one part of Gareth had remained untouched: his faith. Giving the sermon that morning had almost caused him to pass out from heat exhaustion, but he had never forgotten how to smile. His soul was intact.
“Old Gareth!” Gabriel Schist waved from a table at the edge of the deck.
Gareth walked over, stepping carefully. The quarter-of-an-inch gap between every plank was deadly. “Gabriel, always a pleasure!”
Gareth sat down, and Gabriel offered him a strong, sturdy handshake then took a long drag from a cigarette. Smoking? That was new. Gabriel was in his thirties, but he looked younger. His bright red hair and tanned skin glistened in the sun. His grey eyes held the same startling intensity they’d possessed when he was a boy, but dark circles smudged the skin beneath them. In front of him was a tall glass of amber ale. Three other empty glasses stood to one side, and two shot glasses were poorly hidden behind the menu.
“My boy, it’s wonderful to see you again,” Gareth said. “It’s been too long.”
“Two months and seven days, to be exact,” Gabriel replied.
“Why, yes. Yes, I suppose so. Now, why don’t we see each other more often?”
Gabriel lowered his head. “Because I don’t call enough. I’m sorry. I’ve just been so busy. I’ll make up for it.”
“Busy times are the best times. Don’t be hard on yourself. We will make up for it.”
Gabriel glanced down at his beer. Sweat dribbled down the sides, forming tiny puddles on the wood tabletop. As if sensing Gareth staring at him, Gabriel protectively wrapped his fingers around the glass.
Gareth cleared his throat. “Anyway, sorry I’m late. After Mass, I met this charming fellow, a new convert, and we talked for a bit. It’s bizarre how merely talking to people wears me out these days. I used to be such a social butterfly.”
“You still are, I think.”
“Perhaps, but these days… you know how you feel right after waking up, before you have your coffee? That’s what old age is like, except no caffeinated concoction can make it go away. Nope, you’re stuck. I’ll tell ya, getting old is a bummer.”
Gabriel chuckled, but he sounded distracted. He took another drag off his cigarette.
“So how are your experiments on the immune system coming?”
Gabriel’s eyes darted to the side. “Stalled. I’m focusing on other things for the time being.” He downed the rest of his drink, wiped the foam from his mouth, and signaled the waitress for another.
The sun disappeared behind the greyish-white blanket of clouds. Gareth gazed out at the Ferris wheel on the pier. “So what have you been focusing on instead?”
“A lot of smaller projects, ideas, fun experiences, that sort of thing. Yvonne and I finally bought a house last month.”
“That’s fantastic! Tell me more.”
“It’s a nice place, big. It was a foreclosure. The last owners wrecked it, so we’ll have to fix it up, but it’s got good potential. You’ll have to see it.”
